Outbreak investigations are where Dr. Kristen Pogreba-Brown thrives.

Personalized cancer vaccines, where a person’s own cancer cells are deployed to train their immune system to recognize and kill their cancer, appear to be on the cusp of arriving, and academic institutions like the University of Arizona College of Medicine are trying to expedite that.

A new survey has found that interactions between U.S. family medicine residencies and the pharma industry in 2019 continued a decade-long downward trend. The survey by researchers at the University of Arizona College of Medicine, published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, questioned the program directors of 628 family medicine residencies and compared the results to surveys conducted in 2008 and 2013.

Spanish-speakers and migrant workers who speak Indigenous languages can be more at risk because they don’t have access to information about the signs of heat illness, said Nicolas Lopez-Galvez, who received his doctorate in environmental science from the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. His dissertation focused on the effects of extreme heat on farmworkers’ kidney function in Hermosillo, Mexico.

The next free COVID-19 Coalition webinar focusing on what you need to know about the emerging coronavirus variants will be Jan. 26 at 6 p.m. ET. Saskia Popescu, an infectious disease epidemiologist and adjunct professor at the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, is a panelist.

As vaccinations for COVID-19 continue nationwide, blood donation agencies are stepping up efforts to encourage those who have had the disease and recovered to donate their plasma to help treat the sick. Clinical trials, including one overseen by researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, are continuing to determine whether plasma transfusions have real benefits. Dr. Marilyn Glassberg Csete, chief of pulmonary medicine at the University of Arizona’s College of Medicine, said more proof is still needed. “They can’t say there is evidence unless there’s a randomized, double-blind, robustly constructed and conducted trial.”

Even people who have recovered from the coronavirus or already gotten a vaccine should keep taking precautions, according to Dr. Shad Marvasti, director of public health, prevention and health promotion at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix. “While it gives peace of mind, based on the research that's been done to show how efficacious it is in terms of preventing severe illness, it doesn't necessarily keep you from being a source of infection to other people,” Marvasti said.

Will vaccines bring life back to normal? “When community transmission rates are very high, as they are now, you will hear of people getting infected even after the vaccines,” said Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson. “But as more and more people get vaccinated, the chances of that happening will drop by a lot. At that point, we can very much look forward to going out to dinner, etc., and still be safe.”

Dr. Thomas Ardiles of the College of Medicine – Phoenix said it's incredible just how quickly Covid can cause permanent scarring to an otherwise healthy person's lungs. "The accelerated damage can happen in a period of weeks where a smoker may take 30 to 40 years to develop permanent damage," Dr. Ardiles said.

Kelly A. Reynolds, MSPH, PhD, wrote an article about the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's new report in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases on the health and cost burden of waterborne disease in the United States.